[ssharp]

Sorry, I misstated and misread your post.

Some people may be very interested in time smoothing. That is spending time now, with the expectation of spending less time in the future because of present time invested. I think PG has talked about this in regards to startups. Work really hard for a concentrated number of years to reap large financial rewards and have the option of never working again.

Regarding the time/money trade off, that is, as you mention, a personal preference. I'd assume the type of person looking for a big law/finance/consulting job is the type of person who places much more weight on having lots of money and being part of the money culture, than enjoying downtime.